The next corner of campus to buzz, whir and drone with the sound of construction equipment will be the hole off Shortlidge Road next to Thomas Building.

By the time the noise dies down and the dust settles — in December 2003, planners hope — Penn State will have a pair of new science centers linked by a glass skyway, and pedestrians could outnumber cars on the road beneath.

Administrators and top faculty broke ground on the new Life Sciences Building at a ceremony Friday afternoon outside Eisenhower Auditorium.

"Today we realize a dream," said Eva Pell, vice president for research and dean of the graduate school. "This building will be a magnet for programs far flung across the university."

After another groundbreaking ceremony on Oct. 19, construction will also begin on the new Chemistry Building to be located directly across Shortlidge Road, replacing the old Paul Robeson Cultural Center, said Paul Ruskin, Office of Physical Plant spokesman.

While the Chemistry Building will be primarily a research facility, the Life Sciences Building will house more high-tech classrooms and a sloped auditorium with nearly 200 seats. It will also include dozens of labs focused in four interdisciplinary research areas: animal developmental biology, neuroscience, molecular toxicology and plant biology.

"What makes life science research so exciting is the capacity to go from the most fundamental understanding of problems confronted by living systems, and then using that understanding to develop solutions," Pell said.

The cost of the two-building project will be on par with the amount Penn State spent to renovate and expand Beaver Stadium — $44 million for the Life Sciences Building and $55.5 million for the Chemistry Building.

A two-story glass connector at the third and fourth floors of each building will span Shortlidge Road, creating a lounge and display space and an easy way for people — or plants — to get from one place to the next, especially during inclement weather.

The glassed-in link is "an opportunity to foster even more interaction among the sciences by creating some kind of physical connection between the two facilities," Gary Schultz, senior vice president for finance and business, said in a statement.

After construction is complete, Shortlidge Road between Curtin and Pollock roads will be a "pedestrian-first mall," Ruskin said. Designers are still trying to figure out how much to restrict car traffic through the buildings' underpass, he added.

Each building will be L-shaped and enclose a grassy courtyard shielded from the road. Two other elements aim to make the project a little greener, Ruskin said.

On the chemistry side, construction crews are going to fence off a cluster of full-grown silver maple and American elm trees already on the site.

"We're literally going to build the building around these trees," Ruskin said.

On the life sciences side, wide horizontal sun screens will extend out over the windows to reduce the solar heat during the summer, while allowing more light in during the winter when the sun is lower on the horizon. Planners hope the feature will make the building a bit more energy efficient.

Crews have been working throughout the summer to prepare underground utilities on either side of Shortlidge Road, Ruskin said. Utilities work included preparation for future development on the site of Parking Lot 80, next to East Halls.

"We saw an opportunity while we had things torn up," Ruskin said.

With Eisenhower Auditorium and Thomas Building so close to the construction site, there is the chance that classes and arts performances might have to deal with some disruptions, Ruksin said. But officials hope to keep the noise down during the busiest times.

"We'll do the best we can to limit things," he said. "The reality is that we do have a major construction project in the middle of a busy campus."